When asking about the tèen and the saansègè I was told there is a figure that is in charge of performing a sacrifice that asks permission to start the collective hunts and the fishing. Today I met a man about 55, called Sa-Sibiri Traoré. In Seenku he is called Juunsira (Juun=Bush, Sira=Master), in Jula Kungotigi (same meaning). There…

Today I went with a friend to visit his mother’s village near Bobo Dioulasso. It is a Bobo village on the road to Diebougou, and we visited in the period of the funerals. Much unlike the Sambla, the Bobo have many masks that come out for different rituals. Some of these have the peculiarity of…

In a previous post I wrote about the annual collective hunts that involve the male population in Karankasso, during the dry season, and after the ritual of the kurusa. For women it is forbidden to participate to the tèen, even to go into the bush in the direction the hunters will take. The tèen concludes with…

After the annual dankun sacrifice of Brahima Traoré in Samogohiri, masks come from the bush to roam in the village. They are animals, a buffalo, a black monkey, some dagwé (Roan Antelope, Hippotragus Equinus), and an old man. They are each accompanied by a warden, who has the task to “control” and communicate with them….

It all started a couple of months ago when Si-Juma Konaté, after we met for filming the building of the Sambla balafon, brought a photocopy to my hunting companion Lasso. Si-Juma described the piece of paper, that seemed to have been kept folded in a wallet for a long time, as a powerful arabic writing…

Once upon a time a hyena came to feed at night in Karankasso, in a hole under the tall trees I see from my house. She brought her cubs to eat the earth men dug out of the hole. One night, she was left without her offspring. According to a version, they were killed by…